This Guy Animated Loading Icons By Hand

Artist Raphael Vangelis has given our familiar and increasingly rare digital waiting signals a hands-on portrait. His animated short “Analogue Loaders” takes on several ubiquitous symbols for loading and injects them into IRL environments using stop motion. Seen in a new locale some might take a moment to identify, and then several more moments to figure out how he managed them with practical effects.

Between 3D printing and painstaking sculptural detail he rendered the aggravating icons with a care that might shift how you look at them in the future. Well maybe not, but you might have time to while you’re waiting.

His behind the scenes video is equally fun and impressive. If this labor of love doesn’t remind you to be grateful for the engineers (physical and otherwise) behind your spinning wheels and mid-typing icons, I don’t know what will.